Divine and Human stands apart as both a landmark in literary history and master-piece of spiritual and ethical reflection. Suppressed in turn by the tzarist and Soviet regime, the tales contained in this book have, for the most part, never been published in English until now. Emerging at last, they offer western readers fresh glimpses of novelist and philosopher Leo Tolstoy. Divine and Human consists of choice selections from The Sunday Reading Stories, the second volume in a two-part work titled The Circle of Reading. In the words of translator Peter Sekirin, "Tolstoy considered The Circle of Reading to be the major work of his life. Considering its difficult history, it is not surprising that only recently has it been rediscovered." From its sparkling vignettes to its lengthier stories, Divine and Human probes the complexities of life and faith. Its characters range the spectrum of human emotions and qualities, from hatred to love and joy to grief; from sublime nobility to grotesque self-absorption. Tolstoy's world, though far-removed from today's information age, becomes our world -- indeed, has always been and always will be our world. Motor cars may have replaced horse-drawn cars, but human hearts remain the same, and questions of truth, mercy, forgiveness, devotion, justice, and the nature of God knock as insistently on the doors of our lives today as they did in Tolstoy's time. Welcome, then, to Divine and Human: a buried treasure at last unearthed, and certain to be prized by Tolstoy readers and lovers of great literature.

Contributor(s)

Leo Tolstoy , Peter Sekirin

About the Contributor(s)

Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian nobleman, philosopher, and novelist, authored such classic works as Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

Peter SekirinPeter Sekirin was born in Russia. He received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Kiev, Ukraine, where he served as associate professor for several years. In December 1999 Peter obtained his Ph.D. in Russian literature at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Dostoevsky Archive, the English translator for Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom, and has written numerous articles for Linguistics and History of Literature. He resides in Toronto, Ontario.